District 3 wasn’t the only place where Republican primary voters rejected Legislative incumbents.
In District 1 in northeastern South Dakota, incumbent House rookie and Charlie Kirk wannabe Logan Manhart lost, placing third behind incumbent Rhoden appointee Nick Fosness and Daniel Kjos.
Just to the south in neighboring District 4, both rookie Reps, Dylan Jordan and Kent Roe, lost. Newcomer Ryan Kohl and former legislator Fred Deutsch each won 26% of the vote, while Roe drew 25% and Jordan 20%. Challenger Gary William Hudiburgh III placed last at 3%
In District 5 in Watertown, radical right-wing rookie Rep. Josephine Garcia tried to move to the Senate but was blocked by mainstreamer Glen Vilhauer, who won 59% to 41%.
In District 6 around Harrisburg and Tea, Rhoden appointee Rep. Tim Czmowski lost to two newcomers. Jerry Jongeling and Elliott Neff each scored 33%. Third newcomer Ned Horsted matched Czmowski’s 17% and actually won 30 more votes, pushing the incumbent to last place.
In District 10 in Sioux Falls, rookie Rep. Bobbi Andera placed a close third at 32% but lost to newcomers John Pohlman (35%) and Kimberly Petterson (33%).
District 14 in Sioux Falls expressed a more muted anti-incumbent sentiment. In a three-way primary, they kept Rep. Taylor Rehfeldt (43%), but narrowly chose former legislator Tyler Tordsen (29%) over current rookie Rep. Tony Kayser (28%). The same three contended in the 2024 House primary, in which Rehfedlt was still the top choice at 39% but Kayser unseated Tordsen 35% to 26%.
Out west, Rapid City’s District 34 mirrored District 14 almost perfectly, renewing one incumbent Representative while replacing the second with the former legislator who lost last time. Rep. Mike Derby held his seat easily with 42%, while former legislator Becky Drury came back to beat the rookie Rep. who ousted her in 2024, Heather Baxter. Drury narrowly topped Baxter 29% to 28%; in their 2024 primary, Baxter beat Drury 35% to 28%.
In District 29, rookie Senator John Carley has to go home. In the district that runs from Sturgis to Faith, newcomer William Meirose edged the California transplant 51.46% to 48.54%.
District 29 Republicans also booted both of their incumbent House rookies. Seat winners Gary Deering and Gary Cammack won 28% and 27% of the vote, respectively, while rookie Reps. Kathy Rice and Terri Jorgenson lost with 25% and 20%, respectively. Cammack lost his House seat in the 2024 primary, in which Rice placed first with 38% and Jorgenson placed second with 34%, beating Cammack’s 28%.
In Rapid City’s District 33, David Johnson gets a chance to return to the Senate after beating incumbent rookie Curt Voight 52% to 48%. This primary was a rematch of 2024, when Voight ousted Johnson 56% to 44%.
Two incumbents had to lose in this primary. In District 2 in Minnehaha County, both House incumbents, David Kull and John Sjaarda, ran for Senate. Sjaarda won 62% to 38%. And in District 26 arcing from Chamberlain to Murdo to Rosebud, District 26B Rep. Rebecca Reimer beat rookie Senator but Sioux Falls homeowner Tamara Grove 53% to 47%.
Add District 3 losers Senator Carl Perry and Rep. Al Novstrup, and that’s 16 Republican Legislative incumbents who didn’t survive the primary.
By my quick count, 42 Republican incumbents standing for reëlection won their primaries yesterday. Those incumbent victories included two rematches of GOP mainstreamers who lost to insurgent wingnuts in 2024:
- In District 18 in Yankton, mumbling rookie Senator Lauren Nelson somehow held her seat against well-informed and influential former long-time legislator Jean Hunhoff. Nelson won the rematch 53% to 47%, marginally improving on her 2024 52% to 48% win over Hunhoff.
- A little west in District 21 around the south stretch of the Missouri River, rookie wingnut Senator Mykala Voita beat former legislator Erin Tobin again. While Voita upset Tobin 50.6% to 49.4% in 2024, Voita won comfortably yesterday, 59% to 41%.
72% of incumbent legislators survived their 2026 primary challenges.
Rinos win! Will they ever reveal and vote Democratic?
Few policymakers dispute the reasons educated people are fleeing my home state of South Dakota. The state’s governor is a reactionary cracker. Infrastructure is crumbling. Industrial agriculture is smothering wildlife habitat. Churches are girding for gun violence. Meth has replaced alcohol as the state’s drug of choice. Pierre’s culture of corruption and attacks on kids have ended open government. Native wildlife are being exterminated to make way for disease-ridden domestic livestock and exotic fowl. Jails far outnumber colleges. Bankers continue to enslave landowners and the state’s medical industry triopoly operates without scrutiny.
Now, Cory, do your data magic and tell us how much turnout differed between 2024 and 2026? Has any mainstream media analyzed how the change of combining school and city elections with state and county affected turnout and race outcomes?
I found Erin Tobin’s campaigning for 2 years irritating, but then I’m a Democrat. Evidently her GOP voters didn’t appreciate it either…or is there a larger than normal number of GOP voters who depend on their infallible, inerrant pastors to tell them how to vote in that district?
Ms. Voita, she of the overgoddessing and surly ingnorance, would have fit well in Ms. Wismer’s campaign for Governor. Certainly better than that other dour woman who just screetched at people. Lar, this could be the time that Governor Rhoden breaks out the 33 county plan, to beat Mr. Doeden to it. Have you put that bug in his ear?
Interesting to note that 13 of the 16 incumbents who lost were rookies. Parry and Novstrup were the only long-timers who lost to non-incumbent challengers. The Sjaarda/Kull contest doesn’t measure anti-incumbent sentiment in the same way since it was incumbent vs. incumbent and one had to lose.
The 2024 primary was marked by more instances of newcomers beating longer-tenured incumbents. Some of those newcomers held their own this year: e.g., Nelson, Voita, Hohn. But 13 members of 2024’s class of cranky Republicans who rode anger over CO2 pipelines and property rights to victory did not sustain their popularity.
Susan, good questions about turnout! I’m working on that.
What does that make the whack-a-doodle fluctuation? + or – ?
None of the winners or losers were backed by the felon/rapist? Hey Grungenick, how does it feel to be represented by a convicted felon/ adjudicated rapist/ pathological lying 3 year old that can’t stay awake in meetings?